Preserve and develop: experience with architectural heritage
Gavriil Baranovsky
wikipedia.ru
On October 23, the Russian Geographical Society held a round table on "Essential heritage of Architect Gavriil Baranovsky: a look after a hundred years." The online event was timed to coincide with the 160th birthday and 100th anniversary of the death of the famous civil engineer and architect, a graduate of the Institute of Civil Engineers (now SPbGASU).
Many of Gavriil Baranovsky's works are well-known: according to his designs were built the buildings of the Yeliseyev Brothers' store on Nevsky Prospect and the Russian Geographical Society, the Buddhist temple “Datsan Gunzechoynei,” and his own dacha, the Arfa villa erected in Kellomyaki (now Komarovo). However, some buildings, also a part of its architectural heritage, are less known, even forgotten. What is the value of these structures for history and in what condition are they? What is being done to preserve them?
Unknown Constructions of Baranovsky
Up until now, there are many blank spots in the professional biography of the architect. For example, only three years ago, in an issue of the émigré newspaper Novaya Russkaya Zhizn of 1920, evidence was found that Baranovsky was the author of the design of the P. A. Stolypin in Kellomyaki Russian public school (Komarovo). According to Svetlana Levoshko, Associate Professor at the SPbGASU Department of Urban Planning, this building (which has not survived to our time) was an exemplary embodiment of a rational approach: a stone two-story building with a separate entrance for students and apartments for teachers perfectly coped with its purpose. As a rule, in those days for such educational institutions were usually adapted already built buildings. Stolypin Russian Folk School was built from scratch.
Svetlana Levoshko talks about the Russian Folk School built according to the project of Gavriil Baranovsky
✔ The rationality with which Baranovsky approached the volumetric planning structure influenced subsequent generations of civil engineers: it is no coincidence that a touch of functionalism can be seen in the architecture of the 1930s.
Another recent discovery (it became known just a few days ago) is that the Morskoy Khutor sanatorium complex in Estonia was also built according to the design project of Gavriil Baranovsky. The building has survived and now it is the "Villa Meretare" tourist complex.
Among the architect's projects in St. Petersburg, the general public knows well the Yeliseyevsky store, but this is not the only building that connected Baranovsky with representatives of the wealthy merchant family. House located #64. Fontanka Embankment, or Grigory Yeliseyev's apartment building, is one of the first autonomous works of the civil engineer.
Associate Professor of the SPbGASU Department of Architectural and Building Structures Olga Ushakova drew attention to the uniqueness of the building for the period of 1880s, when it was built: it had a water supply system and an elevator, and the high-quality finishing of a brick facade made of terracotta (a type of unglazed ceramics) provided for its perfect preservation.
Report by Olga Ushakova. View of the Fontanka embankment, where a commercial apartment building was built according to the design project of Gavriil Baranovsky
The building has an important urban planning role and is included in the register of objects of cultural significance. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the house was preserved in its original form: currently, the facade from the side of the courtyard is in disrepair. The same applies to the openwork metal canopies of the entrances. One of the participants of the round table, the head of ZAO Geodetic Instruments Valery Glazer, who lives in this house, spoke about this. “Some time ago there was a bank office here, which placed its advertising banners on the facade. Now banner elements continue to stick out from the facade,” he added.
According to Alexander Kononov, deputy chairman of the St. Petersburg branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments, the residents are also responsible for what is happening. It is not uncommon for owners to get rid of authentic doors and window frames in apartments, replacing them to their liking. From a legal point of view, there is no violation: despite the fact that the house belongs to the objects of cultural heritage, the law protects only the facade of the building, and people have the right to make any changes in the interiors of apartments.
Revitalizing Heritage: a New Approach
Dacha of Mikhail Benois, modern look
citywalls.ru
What fate awaits the abandoned architectural monuments and can they be given a second life? Roundtable experts are confident that there is a way out.
The dachas of Mikhail Benois, Arthur Grube, and Ludwig Kron, built in Peterhof at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, are recognized as monuments of wooden architecture of that period. The buildings now belong to St. Petersburg State University. According to Evgenia Petrashen, Senior Lecturer at the SPbSU Design Department, the dachas are planned to be a kind of educational platform. For several years, the buildings served as objects for term and graduation student works, as well as field practical training for students. Students offered various options for landscaping and redesigning its individual elements. Based on these developments, a holistic concept was created for the sustainable revitalization of all three monuments.
Attempts to find funding have so far been unsuccessful, but significant educational work has been carried out: two exhibitions have been organized in the Peterhof library, several thematic articles were published in the editions Project Baltia, Architect and Architectural Almanac.
Another example of “revitalization” of the architectural heritage is the experience of revalorizing the estate of Grigory Yeliseyev in Estonian Toila-Oru. The summer residence of the merchant in the neo-baroque style with the surrounding park, terraces, stables and a greenhouse, built at the end of the 19th century, was destroyed during the Great Patriotic War. In 2014, a large-scale campaign was launched in Estonia to revitalize the manor, its individual buildings and the landscape. There is still a long way to go until full recovery, but modern technologies are coming to the rescue: the Blueray Company has created augmented reality software, with the help of which its users can find themselves on the territory of the Toila-Oru estate during its heyday, in the 1930s, when the first president Estonia, Konstantin Päts, lived here.
Maintain the Spirit of the Place: the History of the Arfa Villa
Another iconic object that Baranovsky built for his family was the Arfa Villa was not overlooked also. The brightest example of Art Nouveau, with a facade reminiscent of a musical instrument of the same name, was almost completely destroyed in 1944 (according to another version - earlier, during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940). To this day, only a two-level terrace has survived, on which the owners arranged chamber concerts (it also played the role of an observation deck overlooking the bay), a gazebo and a fantasy pond bowl in the form of an artist's palette. “Nowadays these artifacts are not protected in any way,” emphasized Elena Travina, historian, coordinator of the Old Dacha research group.
Elena Travina talks about the state of the Arfa Villa. Terrace of the Arfa villa, present day
In 2010, it was planned to build a town for the Constitutional Court here, but this idea was abandoned. The territory was transferred to a commercial real estate agency that had no intentions to preserve the remains of the heritage. Recently it became known that Arfa has got new owners: it was acquired by Boris Eifman's theater. According to Elena Travina, this fact is unlikely to benefit the dacha (in the beginning of the fall, the media wrote about the conflict between the city rights defenders and the theater administration; the reason was the possible demolition and complete reconstruction of Basevich's house on Bolshaya Pushkarskaya Street to adapt to the needs of the Eifman Theater).
However, opposite opinions were also expressed. Thus, the head of the B2 architectural studio Felix Buyanov considers an optimistic scenario possible, believing that Boris Eifman's theater will be able to preserve the “spirit of the place” and competently revitalize the space.
You can view the recording of the round table here.
Gavriil Vasilyevich Baranovsky (1860–1920), an architect, architectural historian, publisher, graduated from the Institute of Civil Engineers and later taught there. He served in the Technical and Construction Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, dealt with issues of construction legislation.
In 1894-1905 he published the Builder magazine, as one of the authors and the editor he prepared the fundamental "Architectural encyclopedia of the second half of the nineteenth century” book.
Text: Alexandra Podolnikova
✔ Learn more about history of the university